The present invention relates to a needle for use in a tufting machine for manufacturing a tufted carpet.
As shown in FIG. 8, a tufting machine has a vertically movable needle 42 for planting a pile yarn 43 through a web of base cloth 41 being fed horizontally through the machine and a looper 44 for hooking at its tapered tip the planted pile yarn 43 to form loops 45 on the underside of the base cloth 41.
As shown in FIG. 9, a prior art needle for a tufting machine has its bottom end pointed as at 46 and has a thinwalled flat middle portion having one edge thereof chamfered into a tapered face 47 to allow easy insertion of the horizontally movable looper 44 between the yarn and the needle 42. An oval yarn insert hole 48 is formed slightly above the pointed tip 46 so that its major axis will coincide with the axis 49 of the needle 42.
The looper 44 serves to catch the yarn planted through the base cloth 41 to form loops.
In order to produce a patterned carpet by use of pile yarns X, Y and Z of different colors as shown in FIG. 10, it is necessary to swing the needles of a tufting machine laterally (in the direction of arrows A in FIG. 10).
But, if such a prior art needle is swung laterally e.g. by five stitches at one stroke to form a large pattern on a carpet, the pile yarn put through the needle 42 will also be pulled laterally, as shown in FIGS. 11 and 12, and be extremely slanted at a portion between the top end of the yarn insert hole 48 and the side of the looper 44 so that the length a of the yarn at this portion will be too short for the looper to reliably hook the yarn. This will increase the possibility of cutting or mishooking of the yarn, thus making it necessary to repair the pattern afterwards.
It is therefore difficult to form a large and beautiful pattern, on a carpet with such prior art needles.